1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a three-dimensional (3D) video processing system and its method. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for processing stereoscopic/multiview three-dimensional video images based on MPEG-4 (Motion Picture Experts Group-4).
2. Description of the Related Art
MPEG is an information transmission method through video image compression and code representation and has been developed to the next-generation compression method, MPEG-7, subsequent to the current MPEG-1/2/4.
MPEG-4, i.e., the video streaming standard for freely storing multimedia data including video images in digital storage media on the Internet is now in common use and is applicable to a portable webcasting MPEG-4 player (PWMP), etc.
More specifically, MPEG-4 is the standard for general multimedia including still pictures, computer graphics (CG), audio coding of analytical composition systems, composite audio based on the musical instrument data interface (MIDI), and text, by adding compression coding of the existing video and audio signals.
Accordingly, the technology of synchronization among objects that are different from one another in attributes as well as the object descriptor representation method for representing the attributes of the individual objects and the scene description information representation method for representing the temporal and spatial correlations among the objects is a matter of great importance.
In the MPEG-4 system, media objects are coded and transferred in the form of an elementary stream (ES), which is characterized by variables determining a maximum transmission rate on the network, QoS (Quality of Service) factors, and necessary decoder resources. The individual media object is composed of one elementary stream of a particular coding method and is streamed through a hierarchy structure, which comprises a compression layer, a sync layer, and a delivery layer.
The MPEG-4 system packetizes the data stream output from a plurality of encoders per access unit (AU) to process objects of different attributes and freely represents the data stream using the object descriptor information and the scene description information.
However, the existing MPEG-4 system standardizes only two-dimensional (hereinafter referred to as “2D”) multimedia data and therefore scarcely concerns the technology for processing stereoscopic/multiview 3D video data.